Dancing to Dirges

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

This is a professional blog post.

Today is March 3rd. Exactly one year since I learned that Solaris was putting itself up for sale.

This is probably the last time I'll talk about this, because it's history and not something I want to dwell on. But it had a significant impact on my life and my career, and not all of it has been bad. I wanted to mark these things one last time, put them in the dirt, and then move on.

The bad things that happened mostly revolved around Heart of Veridon. Because of the legal complexities involved with the sale, no review copies of the book went out. Uncertainty on whether the house would sell led to poor pickup at the bookseller level. So Heart of Veridon foundered and eventually sank. This is life.

On the good side, related to HoV, the new Solaris has gotten those review copies out, and some slight buzz is being generated. Maybe that translates into future sales, or better initial sales on the second book, or whatever. It's a positive development.

The best thing that came of this whole process is that I sold The Horns of Ruin to Lou Anders and Pyr. It's a world I've been kicking around in my head for a long time, and I'm really happy with the final product. Well. Not final yet. I'm doing revisions right now, but the process has been pleasing unto me.

So, a lot has changed in a year. I expected to be grinding out Veridon sequels for a while, and instead I've established a second world while maintaining (after a slight delay) the Veridon series. I've changed jobs. I'm building a house. I'm back in church and really very happy with that, too. None of these things I could have predicted a year ago.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

You'd never know I was a lazy bastard.

It was my intention to post everyday for a little while, just to get the content rate up a little. Technically I'm keeping to that, but this is really just a slapdash excuse for a post. It's been busy.

Today I worked like a madman all day, got home late, ate a quick dinner and then hid at the local starbucks for revisioning. It's going well. But now I'm home, and I'm tired. Tomorrow will be very similar. And tomorrow's tomorrow. This is what I do for a little while.

But I'm really looking forward to some free time! There's a lovely Wednesday in 2011 that hasn't been spoken for yet.

Monday, March 01, 2010

Returning from the Bunker

It was getting dusty in here. Sorry about that.

Basically, I've spent the last two months bunkered in my office, writing The Horns of Ruin. There were a lot of false starts with this book, as there were with Heart of Veridon. Difference was, by the time I got my head wrapped around the issues involved I was done to a handful of months, rather than most of a year. That's my fault, caused partly by my new job, but mostly a lack of focus.

All that aside, I finished the first draft of the book on Saturday. I've just learned that the publisher wants it in quite solid form (which it is not currently) in a week, so I'm grinding the reread for the rest of the week. Oh, and I was so looking forward to some downtime. Maybe next week?

Oh, and we've decided to build a house. There is a lot, which is mostly mud. There are blueprints. Some process of money and wisdom will move us from this state to something we can live in, hopefully sometime in the Fall. Last night I went through my office and culled five boxes of books for Goodwill. That was the light touch. The serious purge will happen later, when we move things into storage for the interim.

Don't have hobbies. That's all I can say. They take up space and money, and just weigh you down. Either that, or never move. Or move every year. It's the only way.